Category: driving

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I didn’t outrun the weather

Even the dismal road has its blessings.

The open road in Minnesota. Photo courtesy Douglas Perot

“You should have been a cross-country truck driver who paints,” Mary Byrom told me. This week, that’s exactly what I am.

I didn’t stop to paint in the Badlands on Wednesday. It was a crying shame, for they were beautiful and the weather was clement. But the sky told me the weather was changing faster than I’d anticipated. “I have to get ahead of this storm,” I told my husband, and gunned it.

Our original plan was to cut down to I-80 and stop in Iowa. According to Google Maps, that would shave twenty minutes off my trip. “I don’t believe it,” I said, and stayed on I-90. Anyways, I kind of liked the idea of driving 2000 miles on the same road. We coasted into Albert Lea, MN in the late hours.

The Badlands are vast and fascinating. Photo courtesy Dwight Perot.

My dog and I did a quick tour around the shrubberies but neither of us wanted to prolong the Minnesota winter experience. It was ferociously windy and snowing steadily. That bad weather I’d wanted in Thermopolis had caught up with me.

The next morning, I borrowed a shovel to clear out the bed of the truck. We wrapped our stuff in contractor bags and eased back on to the highway. I have a niece who lives in Minnesota on purpose. She tells me that the temperature tomorrow will drop to -15° F. It’s hard for me to see the attraction when the wind is howling and the mercury is dropping, but she too is from Buffalo.

I amuse myself on long-distance drives by doing arithmetic. This trip, I calculated just how far behind we were dropping behind. After I got to -5 hours, I decided my game was too depressing. It was still better than talk radio, however.

My truck will get a tonneau cover as soon as I swap the tailgate back to the original.

My son is with me. He’s a responsible driver but he’s young. There was no way I was letting him play bumper cars in a blizzard.

Travel generally gets cumbersome east of the Mississippi anyway. There are tolls (which you can’t pay with cash right now) and the clean, efficient rest stops of the west have been replaced with travel plazas where you must run a gauntlet of merchandise in order to freshen up. And, of course, there’s much more traffic.

At a rest stop, I caught a message from Jane Chapin. A 40-car pileup had paralyzed I-80 eastbound in Iowa. It’s days like this that reaffirm my belief in a providential God. Had I not ignored my itinerary, I’d have been on that road.

That’s not to say my prayers are always answered. Yesterday an old friend died of COVID despite my earnest entreaties on her behalf. There has been no respite in the onslaught of COVID recently; another friend lost her husband to it last week. I was already struggling with those back-to-back deaths when I learned that still another friend has been diagnosed with a very serious cancer.

I realize there’s no equivalence in these things; Kathy’s death is a cataclysm, whereas a truck is just a truck. But still, I’d lose all hope if it weren’t for the occasional touch of heaven on my shoulder. When the stakes are high enough, we’re all with that guy in the Bible who cried, “I do believe! Help me overcome my unbelief!”

I’m going right through Buffalo but there will be no public funeral. That’s actually a relief since it takes the decision out of my hands. I’ve been all over the country; I ought not risk bringing more COVID to my friends and family. My uncle’s funeral back in March was private for just that reason. In this plague year, the obsequies are gone but the grief remains.

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Look in your own backyard

I don’t need to go anywhere to see the beauty of autumn. It’s right here.

Thicket, by Carol L. Douglas

Maine’s official state motto is Dirigo, which means, “I lead… slowly.” Or, as our unofficial state motto reads, “35 mph was good enough for my grandfather, and it’s good enough for me.” Route 1, the state’s major north-south (or east-west, depending on how you look at it) road, is mostly a twisty two-lane highway. For the most part, you can’t pass. It’s pointless to try, because there’s another slowpoke a mile ahead. Except when you get to Portland, where 55 means 77. Sometimes I go there just to remember how to drive fast.

As a recovering New Yorker, I’ve learned to slow down. In the summer, there will be out-of-staters bearing down on my bumper, and a few local idiots as well. They are often boiling more merrily than a lobster boil, waiting impatiently for their chance to pass.

Autumn Farm, by Carol L. Douglas. Available through Maine Farmland Trust Gallery.

In the early stages of pandemic, my car went weeks without a fill-up, but recently I’ve been driving more—up to Schoodicto teach, and down to Portland for doctors’ visits. This week I painted with Plein Air Painters of Maineat a roadside rest stop in Newcastle. It’s about 45 minutes from my house. Alas, it was a misty, overcast day, and the marsh grasses’ color was muted. I painted a wild apple tree instead.

Engine lights came on as I headed home. I stopped and read the codes. There were twelve of them. My poor old Prius has 276,000 miles on it, and it’s getting fragile. No more long trips until I figure this out.

The Dugs, by Carol L. Douglas. Available.

We’re at a glorious moment in the seasonal pageant. The maples have stopped flaming red and yellow. Now the oaks are doing their star turn, arrayed in burnished gold. The other reticent tree that shines this time of year is the wild apple tree. They don’t have much color in their leaves, but they’re covered with bright red fruit. Johnny Appleseed may never have visited Maine, but his influence was certainly felt.

I usually don’t have red on my palette for landscape painting, since most reds in nature can be approximated with cadmium orange and quinacridone violet. However, there was a small ironwood tree in Wednesday’s painting. Its foliage was so intense that I couldn’t hit that note without a spot of naphthol red.

Annie Kirill doing a value study in plein air class at Thomaston. It’s been a spectacular year, weather-wise.

  

This week, my plein air class went to an unofficial pocket park in Thomaston. It’s not on any maps, but it’s behind the Maine State Prison Showroom It has a lovely view of the St. George River, but you would never know about it if you didn’t have inside information.

The gold of the oaks is gorgeous, but it’s the last player on the autumn stage. In a few weeks, empty branches will be rattling in a fierce November wind, and these beautiful days will be a memory.

Autumn is my favorite time of year, but I never seem to get much painting done. I’m committing myself to being out there on every good day from now until the snow flies, capturing the last glimmers of summer beauty before it goes. And not wasting my time driving, either, but setting up in my own backyard.

A side note: with all the conversation about COVID, we forget the very real threat of Lyme Disease. This morning my husband found a tick embedded in his leg. Even after the first frost, they’re still hanging around. Have a care.

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The car cures itself

Summer for a professional plein air painter can involve as much driving as painting.

Cape Blomiden makes its own cloud, by Carol L. Douglas, was painted during a rainstorm in the first annual Parrsboro International Plein Air Festival.
One of my students missed last weekend’s workshop due to a painful flareup of plantar fasciitis. Another student, himself a doctor, told me about taking the disease into his own hands. He simply stretched the offending tissue until it audibly tore. “The relief was instantaneous,” he told me as I stared at him aghast.
My little Prius has done something similar. It has, over the last year, developed a loud scream at high speeds. Turning up the radio was useless. I had the tires rotated to see if that helped. No luck. A front wheel bearing was replaced in March; I replaced its mate two weeks ago. The right rear brake locked up while my car was in Logan Airport long-term parking in April. That wasn’t the root of the noise either. Meanwhile, every month I’ve been spending more money on this car than the payment on a Ford F-150.

I appreciate AAA’s tow service, but I’ve seen too much of it recently.
But even the money hasn’t been the real problem. “It’s no longer reliable,” I lamented to my husband. Next week I drive alone to Parrsboro, NS, where I’m painting in the second annual Parrsboro International Plein Air Festival. There are some lonely stretches up that way, and I don’t like the idea of getting stranded. I’ve started car shopping, but I don’t have the time to do proper research.
Meanwhile, I’ve had a busy spring. On the night of my daughter’s wedding rehearsal, I stopped for a light at a busy intersection. I woke up seconds later to find that I’d rolled right into the line of oncoming cars.
I have more than a million miles of accident-free driving under my belt and I’d like to keep it that way.  Yesterday when I found myself blinking away sleep on the New York State Thruway, I did something I never do: I relinquished the wheel to my co-pilot. Thus, it was he, not me, who was driving when a tire burst on the interstate.
Two Islands in the Rain, Carol L. Douglas, also from Parrsboro International Plein Air Festival
In the end, this turned out to be the Prius healing itself. A few hours later, we were back on the road. The sound that’s been plaguing me for months was gone. It was a defective tire after all.
We rolled into Rockport around the time that the fishermen are up rubbing the sleep from their eyes and checking the weather. The thermostat in my car read 43° F. and it was foggy and pouring.
I have a short tight week here in Maine. I leave to teach watercolor on the schooner American Eagle on Sunday evening. After we dock, I leave directly for Parrsboro, NS.
Teaching watercolor aboard American Eagle mercifully involves no driving. The dock is just minutes from my home.
I’ll be missing the opening reception for the latter, but Poppy Balser kindly stopped by on her way to Paint Annapolisto collect my boards for me. She’ll get them stamped so I don’t have to spend half of my first day there trying to find someone to stamp them for me. I’ll just have to find Poppy.
And the eco-warrior is back on the road, all healed.
This is nothing unusual; it’s the life of many of my friends each summer. We sort events into boxes. Sometimes we can stop at home, swap the boxes, and do our laundry. But often we stack our calendars up in the back of our vehicles: frames and supports for the different events share trunk space. If we’re crossing the border, we take a deep breath as we approach Customs. We’re not breaking the law, but a search of our cars will result in an awful mishmash of our supplies.
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Travel and travail

A long drive gave me plenty of time to ponder the meaning of success and failure.

Whiteface Makes Its Own Weather, was painted last time I was here, in 2014.
Yesterday a radio host was talking about the late Dallas Cowboys football coach, Tom Landry, and his attitude toward losing. “It’s got a priority, but it’s not number one in my life. This creates for me a certain amount of calmness, even though I’m human enough to suffer when we lose,” Landry said.
I’d just been musing on artists’ reaction to failure. I’m as bad as anyone else about taking it personally. However, like Landry, my career isn’t my highest priority. That helps me regain my equanimity a little faster.
We sometimes think a single-minded focus on painting will make us better artists. If Landry’s career is any indication, that’s not true. In fact, it may hinder our recovery from failure. No matter what your walk in life, it’s never a question of whether you will encounter setbacks or crises. They happen to us all. The question is whether you will have the resilience to recover.
Weather Moving In At Barnum Bog, was painted last time I was here, in 2014.
I had a lot of time to think yesterday, as I was driving from Rockport, ME to Saranac Lake, NY. I had a choice of routes. I could drive cross-lots west, which was the shortest distance. Or I could head south to Manchester, which was the fastest route. The obstacle is Lake Champlain, which was in my way no matter which angle I come from. I chose the coastal route. Every town was a snarl of holiday traffic. The trip took hours longer than I anticipated. I was weary.
If New Hampshire and Vermont were starched and ironed, they’d be at least as big as Texas. They’re mountainous and beautiful and villainously difficult to drive.
At 4 PM I considered just stopping for the night and calling it quits. After all, the Green and White Mountains and the High Peaks of the Adirondacks are all Appalachian uplifts, and they all look more or less the same.
The Au Sable River at Jay, 12X9, was painted last time I was here, in 2014.
On the other hand, the stretch between Middlebury, VT and Lake Champlain is one long flash of brilliant green. Heading west from the Atlantic, it’s the first flat open farmland one sees. Those long fields, so common to the Midwest, don’t happen in the Northeast. Just beyond Lake Champlain, the  High Peaks of the Adirondacks rise again, providing a mountain backdrop to a pastoral scene. Anyone interested in living back of beyond could do worse than to land in Addison County, VT.
Although we were instructed to do a nocturne once the sun set at 8 PM, I was impossibly tired. If one is going to be done, it will be an early-morning painting. The sun rises later here than it does on the Maine Coast.
Judging by this morning, I would have until 6 AM to finish. The Eastern Time Zone is impressively wide along our northern border. It runs from Eastport, ME nearly to Chicago. The difference feels substantial every time I come to New York.  At this rate, the sun must come up around noon in Indianapolis.
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The best-laid plans

Maine Ice Storm, Jamie Wyeth.
My pal Toby warned me that I was driving into an ice storm. It stretched from coastal New Jersey to western Massachusetts. But I’ve been driving for almost 40 years (legally) and I drive a lot. In fact, I’d estimate that I’m one of those “million mile” drivers without infractions or accidents. There is always a bolt hole somewhere along the way to stop, and I have emergency provisions in my car.
Ice on the Hudson, Childe Hassam, 1908
The first indication you’re in trouble is usually when your car picks itself up and floats across the road. Mercifully, there was no oncoming traffic on Route 20. When I arrived at my destination, my Prius floated down the hill with no intention of stopping. I opened my door and realized that I was on perfectly smooth skating ice, unfortunately without skates.
Morning mist in the mountains, Casper David Friedrich, 1808
This morning I’m crossing the Berkshires, and I’d rather let someone else test the ditches. So I’m dallying in Pittsford over a second cup of coffee.
Study for Ice Flow, Allagash, Neil Welliver, 1996
Hopefully, my vagabond summers are coming to an end. I’m meeting with a Realtor tomorrow morning in mid-coast Maine. From there, I’ll head up to Schoodic to do a little painting (weather permitting, of course). But first another cup of coffee and a hot shower before I hit the road.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.